When the first reports of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 catching fire hit the web, Samsung fans were their usual snobby selves on smartphone forums:

"Oh, that's what he gets for using a cheap Chinese cable."

"I bet that person wasn't using Samsung's official charger."

These type of presumptuous comments were soon proven wrong, as Samsung announced that the explosions were due to a fault in battery manufacturing. But even had the company never made that clarification, the earlier wisecracks were misguided because almost all gadget hardware are made in China now, even official Apple/Samsung chargers/wires/cables.

The notion that one must use first party "official" accessories with their gadget to ensure safety is absurd, considering official peripheral products are always absurdly overpriced. Why pay Apple $20 for a cable that cost $0.50 to make in China, when a third-party cable costs $8 and was made in another factory in the same Chinese city?

This isn't to say that we as consumers should buy the cheapest gadget peripherals possible. We should still do our research and find a third-party accessory developer we can trust. Shenzhen-based Tronsmart, for example, is one company with a long history of providing peripherals for smartphones. Its latest product, a charging brick dubbed the "Presto," has gotten very good reviews on Amazon, as well as on XDA forums. I decided to give it a test.

Photo: Ben Sin

A properly built charger is important for users of new Android phones, as almost all of them use fast-charging technology, most notably Qualcomm's "quick charge." In a nutshell, quick charge forces higher levels of current to flow into the battery, resulting in a faster top-up.

Tronsmart's Presto stands out from the hundreds of portable chargers on the market because not only is it Qualcomm certified -- Tronsmart's website actually has a copy of the certification to prove it -- it also has a bi-directional USB-C port, meaning you can charge the Presto with USB-C, or charge something else with that same cable. There's also a traditional USB outlet, so this is effectively a dual-port charger.

I've been using the Presto to charge my LG V20 (which supports quick charge 3.0), and it gets me from 0 to 100 in around 75 minutes. I checked the brick periodically and it never got hot. Here's the charging breakdown by port:

Input (Type-C): DC:5V/3A

Output (Type-C Port): DC 5V 3.0A Max

Output (QC3.0): DC 5V-6.5V/3A 6.5V-9V/2A 9V-12V/1.5A

At 12,000 mAH, the Presto has enough power to charge the typical Android smartphone three to four times. And if you're concerned about fire, Tronsmart says the Presto has 11S circuit protection, which includes input/output overvoltage protection and temperature protection.

Oh, and for what it's worth, Tronsmart sources its battery from ATL, the same company that provided the "good" batch of batteries to the Note 7s (a source within Samsung told the WSJ it was SDI that supplied the potentially explosive batteries).